Contexts has achieved the goal of its first volume this year, and the systemic design journal call for papers is actively open.
The outstanding Volume 1 line-up has articles by Harold Nelson, Dulmini Perera and Tony Fry, Elena Porqueddu, Ryan Murphy, Danielle Lake, David J. Marshall, Rozana Carducci, and Tracey Thurnes.
We are currently reviewing and publishing new articles for Volume 2. The first article in the volume from Markus Wernli and Kam-fei Chan, Cosmotechnic Encounters: Designing with foodwaste, landscapes, and livelihoods.
Contexts is a continuous publishing journal, and we review and print submissions as they are received. As with preceding years and the inaugural volume, the best opportunity to acquire new material is immediately after the RSD Symposium. We encourage submissions from SDA members. New contributors that are developed from the RSD12 papers and presentations are also welcomed; however, authors must make substantive revisions to the proceedings article, updating findings from research done since the paper was written or theory building based on updates and feedback from the symposium experience. These are represented by steps in the Scholars Spiral, a model that provides a guideline for authors to build on their work from conference to journal publication. Since Contexts has been established for the growing studies in the systemic design interdiscipline, we aim to publish work that informs other researchers in their work, provides insight to practice, and builds a community of reflective practitioners worldwide.
Systemic design journal call for papers
Submissions can be made via the Contexts online portal (via EasyChair), or inquiries sent to Peter Jones, Editor in Chief.
Cosmotechnic Encounters: Designing with foodwaste, landscapes, and livelihoods
[ABSTRACT] Organic wastes are vital for farming, energy generation, and carbon capture—embodying naturally the ideal of circularity. However, due to their messiness and weight, organic matter arrives with biological and sociotechnical challenges. What kind of imaginaries, recovery practices, and contingencies are required to reclaim and revalue such lively material? Pursuing this, how can we mitigate the detriment of urban food waste, and, in turn, regenerate regions impacted by climatic and economic precarity? In response, we conducted a series of collaborative encounters with farmers, chefs, retailers, and biotech entrepreneurs in rural Hong Kong to explore what a reverse supply chain might involve that redirects organic wastes from the city to agricultural landscapes. We took insight from Yuk Hui’s cosmotechnics vision, design studies, and diverse economies for differentiating a broader spectrum of economic possibilities. Following this embeddedness with interdependent livelihoods enables us to live in fullness with the world, particularly with organic waste as the foundation for contributing to a circularity that tangibly interlinks humans, nonhumans, cities, and the countryside to different futures. Such constellations can manifest varied instances of economisation—the mutually regenerative and stabilising relationships which facilitate exchange. They also embody a cosmological imaginary that reconfigures local economies predicated on designing with the shapelessness of contingency: staying put with what easily is ignored while relinquishing determinist categories, fragmentation, and totalising systems.
Article image: Garden service providers leading to impromptu soil application test of Bokashi at their rooftop operation.
AUTHORS ARE INVITED TO SUBMIT MANUSCRIPTS TO CONTEXTS AT ANY TIME.
